Bastards of the Foreign South

Just spent an ungodly amount of time looking through my health insurance paperwork trying to come up with some answers since phone calls put me into this waiting loop that I have zero patience for today.  I am looking to find out the costs behind some things, and with the stress levels building to a level I can't remember ever feeling before, I figure I better do this all sooner than later.

I'm lucky enough to have health insurance.  It's not the best, but it works well enough for my purposes usually.  If I end up employed elsewhere at some point, I may not have the insurance option anymore, so I want to use it while I can and get a few things looked into while I have that option.  That also adds to the stress, but these days a shrug of the shoulders is about all I can do because I don't believe in impersonal shooting rampages.  (Twice the mess.  Half the fun.)  People irritate me.  End of story.

So in my files, while looking for insurance paperwork, I come across a folder filled with rejection slips on stories and manuscripts that are often described as "too dark" or "too depressing."  I can only chuckle when I read them.  Want "depressing"?  Look at what is passed off as entertainment and art these days.  Dark?  The entire world has gone pitch black but few have opened their eyes wide enough to see it.  That's okay, though.  I'll keep plugging away.  It's what I do.

These rejection notices, far from being depressing, are actually kind of nice.  They let me know I'm on the right track.  Quite a few of the publications I've been rejected from no longer exist.  Telling, I suppose.  Some are still around, though in a much different capacity.  Also telling.  Me?  I've gotten darker and more depressing, I imagine.  Life may be all flowers and unicorns for some mental squats, but like Captain Spaulding, I calls 'em likes I sees 'em.  Happy dreams for happy people is not a motto I'm interested in.  More guns!  More disease!  That's my bumpersticker.

A pile of rejection letters.  Enough health insurance paperwork to make me suspect I was looking at the remains of a small forest.  What did it get me?  Nothing and nowhere.  One provided no answers.  The other reiterated what I already knew.  Nothing and nowhere.  Maybe it's not such a bad place to be.  Hell, it beats buying into the standard gig.  That gets you nothing and nowhere, too, but at least my way lets you retain your dignity.